Do you kick the jumpseater off the plane

Bandit_Driver

Bandit_Driver

Gold Member
Just wondering what other companies have as policies or if there is one in the following scenario.

You are the last flight to XYZ and the cockpit jumpseat is MEL'd. You board and push with the jumpseater in the cabin. You block out and have to return to the gate to have a passenger removed. The gate now tells you they want to board some pax that didn't make it the first time.

Do you put the Jumpseater off and fill all the seats? Does the PIC have any authority to keep the JS pilot on the plane?
 
Bandit_Driver said:
Do you put the Jumpseater off and fill all the seats? Does the PIC have any authority to keep the JS pilot on the plane?
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I'm not an airline pilot, but as a gate agent I can say at my airline, the PIC has the final call.

I have actually seen something like this before. E120 is about to push, UA FO comes running up asking for a jump, I tell him the flight is closed and went out weight restricted. He looks out the window and insists he knows the captain and begs to go down, of course I let him. The captain then delays the flight by over 10 minutes playing with the numbers than finally says he can take 1 more, the UA FO. The supervisor gets on the radio and insists the FO get back upstairs and one of the paying pax who volunteered to give up their seat gets on. The captain refuses, and in my book that was fine, the volunteers get their free ticket, the FO gets his jump, everyones happy. But then, guess what, flights delayed, so a mis connect shows up demanding to get on the plane. Next flight is not for 5 hours, this person does NOT want the free ticket, they want to go. Captain refuses, shuts the door, takes off with the FO.

If that was wrong or right on moral grounds, you decide for yourself, however, from an operational stand-point, I as the gate agent could not over-ride the captain and send the pax down. Personally, I think he should have took the poor passenger, but the FO must have been an old buddy.
 
The captain has the final authority over any passenger boarded. That being said, his/her decision is subject to scrutiny by management. You need to be prepared to stand before your chief pilot and defend your decision so make sure whatever you decide is something you can defend. Allowing your buddy on the flight by removing/denying revenue passengers is something that will likely be questioned. As a captain, I have a fair degree of discretion in allowing or disallowing things to happen on my airplane. In the above question, I would likely tell the gate agent that he is welcome to fill any remaining seats with any revenue passengers he chooses; however, NO individual already on board is to be removed. I would defend that decision based on the fact that the flight had already departed and fairness and common sense dictates I not remove any individual who was already seated. Be firm with the agent and don't turn it into a negotiation. A simple "I have three seats you can have and we are closing the door in one minute" is all that needs to be said.
 
Well in this scenario, I gave the final count 10 minutes before the EDT. A few minutes later, the FO comes by, I let him go down since the captain is standing outside anyway and if they want to chat the delay isn't on me. The captain had the new numbers 10 minutes after the EDT. Thats 20 minutes after I gave the final count and the doors could have been closed(ramp already loaded the bags and everything). The supervisors called one of the higher ups on this one complaining that the ramp told the captain we needed 27, he insisted we could only take 26, so thats what we clear it with. But when his buddy shows up, he takes a 10 minute delay for the flight for recalculations to take the FO and his huge carry-on. Something tells me the fact he made all that effort and delayed the flight for a non-rev instead and with the new limits of 27 would not take the last paying pax who showed up, I'd say he didn't have much of a defense on that one.

Seeing as us gate agents get in trouble for a 1 minute delay if the cause is customer service, wouldn't one think a situation like this wouldn't blow over well for the captain?
 
While I agree with CalCapt that the Capt has the final say, I disagree with his seating theory. Sorry, but if there are revenue standbys who want on, the offline jumpseater is the first to get off followed by the non-revenue passengers who were boarded.

Because, as CalCapt says, you're going to have some 'splainin' to do later on.
 
calcapt said:
The captain has the final authority over any passenger boarded. That being said, his/her decision is subject to scrutiny by management. You need to be prepared to stand before your chief pilot and defend your decision so make sure whatever you decide is something you can defend. Allowing your buddy on the flight by removing/denying revenue passengers is something that will likely be questioned. As a captain, I have a fair degree of discretion in allowing or disallowing things to happen on my airplane. In the above question, I would likely tell the gate agent that he is welcome to fill any remaining seats with any revenue passengers he chooses; however, NO individual already on board is to be removed. I would defend that decision based on the fact that the flight had already departed and fairness and common sense dictates I not remove any individual who was already seated. Be firm with the agent and don't turn it into a negotiation. A simple "I have three seats you can have and we are closing the door in one minute" is all that needs to be said.
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:yeahthat: Well said.
 
Velocipede said:
While I agree with CalCapt that the Capt has the final say, I disagree with his seating theory. Sorry, but if there are revenue standbys who want on, the offline jumpseater is the first to get off followed by the non-revenue passengers who were boarded.

Because, as CalCapt says, you're going to have some 'splainin' to do later on.
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Velo has a valid point that this is a sticky situation. I would just take the position that the revenue passengers missed the flight to begin with. They were not on board when we pushed the first time and are not entitled to be boarded on a flight that has essentially already gone. The jumpseater and all non-revs boarded on the first go stay. I am willing to defend that position if challenged.
 
Well, that's what "Captain's discretion" is all about. I've seen guys successfully defend actions that were way wackier than this.
 
Thanks for all the replies and input. It is pretty much what I was thinking that it is a sticky situation.

Thanks again Velo & CalCapt.
 
Thats pretty much how I look at it. I just ask myself how it would look if I'm sitting in front of the chief and had to explain myself.
 
Our ops manual is very clear the Captain has the final say over the jumpseat / none revenue passengers. However NO DELAY shall be accepted for a none revenue passenger / jumpseat passenger.

This would mean that 10 min delay that was accepted for the weight calculations to take the FO would of been against the GOM - this would leave the CA with some explaining to do.

If a choice had to be made I would always take revenue passengers over a none essential jumpseat rider.

If the guy is being positioned on a company airplane then that is different as he will have a higher priority than the pax anyway why? Because if he does not get the flight then more PASSENGERS will be inconvenienced.

This is what it is all about at the end of the day PASSENGERS. (this is especially true if the passenger that needed to get on was a mis connect that was a result of the airline)
 
That scenario above with the UA FO showing up seems a little fishy. As the Capt I would find it tough to defend how I delayed a flight that had already left passengers behind only to work the numbers to get a jumpseater on. I'm all for getting jumpseaters on, but I know the revenue passengers come first when it comes down to weight restrictions.
 
I don't think the gate would put PAX on a flight after it pushes even if it comes back.

Flights close 10 minutes before push - end of story.
 
Lately we've been having a problem with gate agents marking us weight restricted just at random. They'll say we're restricted to 35 passengers when we really could take 37, a jump and almost 1500lbs of bags.

Just the other day one of our jumps managed to somehow convince the gate agent to let him come down to talk to us and we managed to not only get him on but fill the remaining seats with other standbys (we did have to move 2 carry ons from the baggage compartment to the overheads, but no prob!)
 
This is the beauty of not having all that fancy equipment to tell on you. I like the fact that on the Saab we call all of our times ourselves, and I like how we manually do weight and balance. Its funny how a flight is never delayed due to crew ;-)
 
v1valarob said:
This is the beauty of not having all that fancy equipment to tell on you. I like the fact that on the Saab we call all of our times ourselves, and I like how we manually do weight and balance. Its funny how a flight is never delayed due to crew ;-)
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Amen to that.
 
It's gonna be different from company to company. Here, since the almighty dollar rules, I'd be in deep if I let a JSer go when there was a revenue passenger standing there....even if the flight returned. At least, that's the feeling I get from our management and the backing (or sometimes lack there of) from the CP's office and flight ops.

Lately, I've been fighting the battle of the weights with gate agents to get as many pax and JSers on as I can. They'll weight restrict a flight and say "That's that." I'll tell them "Nope. Not until we see those cargo numbers." Most of the time you're not even close to the max cargo number on the weight restriction, and you can plug numbers into the FMS to find out how many people you can take with enough time to get some last minute passengers or non-revs on assuming the gate starts boarding on-time. Even with fuel for an alternate and contingency fuel for weather deviations, I was able to get 2 non-revs and a JSer on a MEM-IAH flight with room to spare when the gate said "No way."
 
Although I love to help our fellow crewmwmbers, if I can get a revenue passenger on, then that's who goes. If I returned to the gate to let revs off then we can take that many revs on, but I would not remove someone already on who wants to stay on. I always work the weights and have told the gate we can take another person and if they say it's closed, I have told them to put the delay on me, because I have NEVER been questioned about a crew delay.

Once in FAT I had two seats left and a family of 6 who wanted to ride together and did not want to split up. We also had an FO and FA who wanted to JS to SFO. I told the gate to let our 2 on if the family was not going to take the seats. The gate said they could not put nonrev in front of passengers, I said fine send me 2 passengers, they said that the passengers didn't want to split up . . . I said fine send me the crew members, the gate said they could not put the non revs on before the paying customers, this coversation happened THREE times!
I said OK, I got out of the plane, walked into the terminal and went to the father of the group and introduced myself as the captain and that we had two seats, and would anyone from his family like to go now to SFO, he said no. I then pointed out our two crewmwmbers standing by the gate and asked him if he would have a problem with me filling those seats with my crewmembers, (of course he said no) I looked at the gate agent and said, "put those two on my airplane." So they did. But it was incredibly stupid to have to go through all of that to achieve some common sense.
 
Bumblebee said:
I have told them to put the delay on me, because I have NEVER been questioned about a crew delay.
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For those watching at home, THIS is the difference between a regional people WANT to work for and a regional people simply work for. If it's a crew delay, you can bet your bottom dollar my phone is gonna be ringing within 2 hours. I normally have voicemail that goes along the lines of "Hi, this is XXXX from flight ops. We noticed there was a crew delay on Flt #### to AAA. Give us a call when you get a chance." I normally wind up defending myself over the phone or giving the REAL story. I've had gate agents that started boarding 10 minutes late try to put it on the flight attendant, and the last one was a MX delay that they put on the crew. Sadly, pretty much every phone conversation starts off with the assumption that the crew screwed up something. For this reason, if we're one minute late blocking out, I fire off an ACARS message to flight ops saying why, and I keep a record in my APDL notes to back that up.
 
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